By: Khan A. Sufyan
July 12, 2012
We arrived in Darzo (Mizoram, India) about ten in the morning. My orders were to get the villagers to collect whatever moveable property they could, and set their own village on fire at seven in the evening.
Night fell, I lit a torch myself and set fire to one of the houses. I knew I was carrying out orders, and would hate to do such a thing if I had my way. My soldiers also started torching other buildings, and the whole place was soon ablaze. Women were wailing and shouting and cursing. Children were frightened and cried. But the grown men were silent; not a whimper or a whisper from them. When it was time for the world to sleep, we marched out of Darzo .
We walked fifteen miles and the morning saw us in Hnahthial. I hated myself that night. I had done the job of an executioner. I called the Darzo Village Council President and his village elders and ordered them to sign a document saying that they had voluntarily asked to be resettled under the protection of the Security Forces as they were being harassed by the insurgents and that no force or coercion was used by the Security Forces.
They refused to sign. So I called them in one man at a time. On my table was a loaded revolver, and in the corner stood two NCOs with loaded sten-guns. This frightened them, and one by one they signed the documents.
(Lalkhama 2006. A Mizo Civil Servant’s Random Reflections. Ghazaibad:
Express Print House, pp.177-180)
In September 2011, state assembly of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) debated a report which uncovered presence of more than 2,000 unmarked mass graves not far from the Line of Control that divides Pakistan from IOK. The report, by Indian government appointed State Human Rights Commission, also issued its first official acknowledgment of the presence of these mass graves.
Such incidents have not only been reported from IOK but many other parts of India. The atrocities committed to counter many ongoing insurgencies in the name of democratic Union of India are wide-spread, horrendous and shameful, yet only a handful of the perpetrators has ever been brought to justice.
India has been able to bring some of these insurgencies under a measure of control. Yet the wanton atrocities committed by Indian security forces and the coercive manipulation of democratic process probably has been some of the major causes why India houses one of the largest number of freedom movements and secessionist groups, insurgencies and extremist groups and in any one country in the world. Currently, there are around 140 such known groups operating in 28 Indian States and 7 Union Territories.
There are parts of India where diverse set of freedom movement groups run their own independent governments, collect taxes, maintain functional bureaucratic institutions, judiciary and maintain well organized regular and trained armies. On 30 June 2012, the Army of Government of People’s Republic of Nagaland held an openly announced passing out parade of a batch of officers at their military base Khehoi, merely 40 kilometers from Rangapahar, Dimapur. Rangapahar is the Headquarters of Indian Army 3 Corps and is a big cantonment also housing large Para-military force nearby. Yet the Indian Army and other security apparatus did not have the courage to establish the writ of Indian government.
Over 120 Indian Army battalions and over 250 para-military battalions are deployed in Occupied Kashmir. Close to 70 Indian Army battalions and over 220 para-military battalions are deployed in North East of India. Over 80 para-military battalions are also deployed in the rest of India to combat insurgencies. These forces have committed massive human rights violations. They are protected under the law, particularly the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) for protection of Indian Army, giving it blanket cover for killing or torturing anyone.
Does anybody in the so-called civilized world know that a lady known by the name of Irom Sharmila Chanu, also known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, has been on hunger strike for the past 12 years and is being force-fed. She went on a hunger strike on 4 November 2000 in an effort to have the Government of India withdraw AFSPA from Manipur and other parts of India.
India has always blamed her neighbors, mainly Pakistan for presence of such a large number of secessionist groups. However, according to Indian media sources only 32 such groups operate in IOK, presence of which is conveniently blamed on Pakistan. Large majority of the IOK populace however blame oppression of Indian Security Forces in the killings of over 100,000 Kashmiri people. Bulk of the remaining groups around 72 in number operate in the North East of India, while the remaining are spread over the rest of Indian territory. Overall, around 30-40 percent of Indian territory has been inflicted by freedom movements and insurgencies due to un-equal treatment meted out to the local populace and atrocities committed by Indian Security Forces, who are protected by law through manipulation of democratic institutions.
In addition to this, Naxalite movement alone has spread to over 40 percent of India and is fast getting out of hand. These are poor people who have risen up in arms against a manipulative democratic dispensation in which the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer without any future. Even with oppressive application of large number of security forces, India is clearly losing her writ on almost 50 percent of its territory.
The neo-colonial attitude followed by Indian political elite has further exacerbated the dichotomies present in the democratic and political dispensation meted out to the population at large. Their indifferent internal economic policies sustained through oppressive application of security strategies kept hidden from the world at large through adroit media handling in order to achieve some unattainable foreign policy precepts may lead to undesirable consequences. The blind followers of Indianized Kingdom or Indianization through attempted assimilation of neo-colonial cultural fail to understand that US achieved the objectives of its state-hood as a result of a civil war in 1860s.
India apparently is fast approaching this red line, where these freedom movements and insurgencies may result in internecine civil wars in different parts of India. In their ambition to undo the 1947 partition of India, the Indian neo-colonial dispensators may further fuel the disintegration of India through a democracy soaked in blood of her own people.
Link: India: Democracy Soaked In Blood Of Her Own People - OpEd Eurasia Review
This is all fascinating, but do you have a comment to start us off with? We all know India has struggled with a number of armed movements - why tell us something we already know? If you want to start a discussion then I suggest you start one. The article does not speak for itself. In fact, I suspect it has holes you could drive an Indian Railways train through. I can already see holes in this & I don't know much about Indian history or politics.
Help us out here - start the discussion.
Last edited by Bigfella; 15 Jul 12, at 03:47.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
Being from Punjab, a state which has faced one of the bloodiest secessionist insurgencies in India's recent history, I would rather have an honest analysis of the human rights violations that took place in crushing that insurgency, rather than this completely hogwash of an article from Sufyan Khan!
It is ironical how he labels India a 'democracy soaked in blood' due to it's internal secessionist movements, but describes Pakistan's secessionist movements, in another hogwash of an article, as;
Sufyan Khan is no better than your average Pakistani fanboy.External interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs in order to destabilize its polity through creation and support of secessionist elements is taking place with impunity.
India's Nuclear Weapons Exceed 200: Exacerbates Asian Nuclear Quagmire - Analysis Eurasia Review
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
I have been all around this world and not once did I find as good as shit as these guys smoke.
Chimo
It's called Indica for a good reason.
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
What is your take on Kanwar Pal Singh Gill ?Originally Posted by Tronic
For some he is a monster, for others THE reason the insurgency ended there. Its over because AFSPA was in place from '83 to '89 and that was it. Look at Punjab today compared to the 80s, for an outsider like me its like it was just a bad dream.
It makes me think about the right & wrong that goes on during an insurgency. The moral compass is spinning. The biggest argument against atrocities is that an insurgency is primarily a battle for hearts & minds. The CO's are where the buck stops with.
If attrocities are committed then the state is gifting PR victories to the insurgents. Only an incompetent state would persist in them. Its not possible to keep the peace with force alone it requires the cooperation of the locals as well. And if thats the case then the isolated events that have occurred are being given too much hype than they deserve, as the overall picture indicates otherwise. Its a matter of balance & perspective.
Yep, its basically finding ways to throw back at us what is said about them. Trying to create an equivalence of sorts. And that reveals the audience this article is catering to.
Last edited by Double Edge; 15 Jul 12, at 08:28.
Peripherally related to the Naxals, here is an interesting reader's comment i read on a blog post about auctioning mineral resources...
Basically what fuels the naxal movement is the lack of land reform.India is seeking a transition from socialist economy to market economy, and the corruption is perhaps an inevitable consequence when inflation is high, the state sheltered wages keep falling in real terms.
Auction is a first derivative solution, but not the real answer. The Honorable Judges can not be expected to possess know-how to steer economy, it is an executive policy function. A ruling on this matter is as absurd as the one years earlier which sought to define Hindutva! These need to be viewed seriously as judicial overreach.
The answer to mining resources is proper market valuation of land. Realistic valuation requires proper land markets be developed such that legal mechanisms for price discovery get created. The real values of land being acquired by governments is far higher than what business actually pays, not surprisingly they find it far far cheaper to pay the politicians. Infact, all business bodies in India have opposed genuine land market and want governments to acquire land for them. The lobby for SEZ is very strong indeed.
Such auction process may improve the returns to the government, but not to the landowners, mostly poor people of India. A legal framework, with privacy of ownership being complete which includes the right of refusal to sell, is a mandatory requirement to evolved complex set of institutions for creating a market for land transactions. Only with such decentralized decision making, land aggregation, rationalization of farm holding sizes, investment in suburbs development propelled by rapid motorization of Indian cities shall take place at massive scale required for fast forwarding development.
Market economy is premised on voluntary transfer of land, after demanded price has been paid by the buyer. The state also benefits by higher tax realization in the long run. So do business by creating right of ambiance within their organization and with outside society. It is a win-win-win measure really when seen from a proper and long term perspective.
Last edited by Double Edge; 15 Jul 12, at 08:26.
KPS Gill is an a-hole to every single Punjabi who lived through those turbulent days. Those were the times people feared the militants at night, and the police during the day.
And '83 to '89 was actually the growth of the insurgency, not the decline. The decline came in the early 90s, from about '93 to '95. The Pakistanis closed the training camps for the Khalistanis, and handed over intelligence of all the local Khalistani commanders in Punjab.
The bigger factor in ending the Khalistan insurgency was Benazir Bhutto.Look at Punjab today compared to the 80s, for an outsider like me its like it was just a bad dream.
At the time, the Indian security forces were indeed incompetent at fighting the insurgency, and winning hearts and minds was their last priority in those days. A lot of the COIN tactics, and even special units, such as the NSG, came into existence only after major screw ups in Punjab. I was born at the time the insurgency was at its peak, and from childhood stories to my own recollection of events till about the age of 9-10, I've seen my share of ugly. I've seen my uncles being roughed up and even had a cousin who was picked up and tortured by the police. And I come from a well known political family in Patiala, whose extended family includes Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh. So you can just imagine the treatment meted out to the more poor rural folk.It makes me think about the right & wrong that goes on during an insurgency. The moral compass is spinning. The biggest argument against atrocities is that an insurgency is primarily a battle for hearts & minds. The CO's are where the buck stops with.
If attrocities are committed then the state is gifting PR victories to the insurgents. Only an incompetent state would persist in them. Its not possible to keep the peace with force alone it requires the cooperation of the locals as well. And if thats the case then the isolated events that have occurred are being given too much hype than they deserve, as the overall picture states otherwise. Its a matter of balance & perspective.
That said, it's important to distinguish between the Army and the Punjab Police. While the army adapted quickly after the initial screw up in Op. Bluestar, and it's role is commendable, the Punjab Police were horrible! KPS Gill based promotions on body count, and the Punjab Police became busy in stacking up bodies, which meant a spike in fake encounters.
Sufyan Khan is a biased Pakistani fanboy, and far from trying to create an equivalence, he's peddling the same BS peddled in the mainstream Pakistani media, portraying India to be a country in an internal civil war, at the brink of falling apart. It's a carrot to the Pakistani masses, promising them Kashmir, for their continued perseverance in support of "Jihad" against India.Yep, its basically finding ways to throw back at us what is said about them. Trying to create an equivalence of sorts. And that reveals the audience this article is catering to.
Last edited by Tronic; 15 Jul 12, at 09:47.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
"...he's peddling the same BS peddled in the mainstream Pakistani media, portraying India to be a country in an internal civil war, at the brink of falling apart..."
Needless to say but there's a real audience for this very illusory hope just to India's immediate west.
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
Only if they spent the same amount of energy fixing the shortcomings of their own nation, but than, I guess there's nothing wrong with Pakistan! Everything is a foreign ploy against them!
Last edited by Tronic; 15 Jul 12, at 10:12.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
Thx for your take on Punjab
The underlined bit is what i mean by equivalence ie look India has the same (or is it more) problems too.
hmm, i don't know about promising them Kashmir but he is certainly trying to create sympathy for the cause by bringing up unmarked graves & the 100k kashmiris allegedly killed.
That these numerous struggles tie India down. That India will be forced to compromise on democracy and so long as that happens then the claim that India is the worlds largest democracy rings hollow.
I found this bit odd but i suppose its obliquely bringing up Kashmir again.In their ambition to undo the 1947 partition of India, the Indian neo-colonial dispensators may further fuel the disintegration of India through a democracy soaked in blood of her own people.
This is another weird one.The neo-colonial attitude followed by Indian political elite has further exacerbated the dichotomies present in the democratic and political dispensation meted out to the population at large. Their indifferent internal economic policies sustained through oppressive application of security strategies kept hidden from the world at large through adroit media handling in order to achieve some unattainable foreign policy precepts may lead to undesirable consequences. The blind followers of Indianized Kingdom or Indianization through attempted assimilation of neo-colonial cultural fail to understand that US achieved the objectives of its state-hood as a result of a civil war in 1860s.
WTH is 'blind followers of Indianized Kingdom or Indianization through attempted assimilation of neo-colonial cultural(sic)' ?
On the one hand he says the state's writ does not pass in a number of parts of the country then when efforts are made to enforce that writ he condemns us for being undemocratic.
I suspected this was BS at first glance. Thanks for filling in the blanks folks.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
Dr. Subramanian Swamy is the President of a well known political party known as Janata Party. And this is what he says about one such genocide. This is just tip of the iceberg. This has happened again and again and again in different parts of India. The Indians can keep on blaming others for the genocides carried out by their own. I don’t think this is a mere fanboy thing!
Hashimpura massacre and PC
Hashimpura massacre and PC’s role in it
14 Jul 2012
Author: Subramanian Swamy (president of the Janata Party)
Quotes from the piece …………..
During the early hours of May 22, 1987, trucks of the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) arrived in a mixed Hindu-Muslim Meerut mohalla named Hashimpura, populated by labourers and weavers. This mohalla was peaceful despite protracted communal clashes in Meerut since April 1987. The opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid by the Rajiv Gandhi government was the point of conflagration.
Nineteen PAC men with their commanding officer, had been ordered to surround the Hashimpura mohalla, to wake up the residents and then segregate them as Hindus and Muslims. Thereafter, they separated Muslim women and elderly men from the youth. Of these youth, the PAC constables picked young boys aged between 15 and 35 years, and ordered them to board two of their trucks.
The trucks then drove 20 Km to Gang Neher, a canal near Murad Nagar and to Hindon canal. At the two places, the youth were ordered to disembark one by one. As each young man got down, he was shot in the head by a PAC jawan, and his body kicked into the canal. Only three survived, one of them was to die later. In all, 42 were killed in that pre-dawn, execution-style massacre.
A few days later on May 26, 1987, Syed Shahabuddin, then a Janata Party MP, called me up in a highly emotionally charged voice to explain what had happened and asked me to do something.
I therefore visited Hashimpura and spoke to the residents. I took some of the Hindus aside and asked for confirmation of what Shahabuddin had narrated to me. They confirmed the account. I also visited Gang Neher and saw the tell tale marks of blood and flesh, and also inhaled the stench from the rotting blood clots.
By then I was in a shock. I thought atrocities in the 1975-77 Emergency was the rock bottom to which the modern Indian nation could sink in terms of State sponsored terror. But this was right out of the Nazi Holocaust. ...
I therefore I called up Shahabuddin and promised that I would do something. At that time the Prime Minister was Rajiv Gandhi and who was also my friend, and therefore I had unlimited access to meet him.
Thus a meeting between Rajiv and me took place. He of course knew about the matter. So I urged him to set up an inquiry. He told me he would, but his tone was not assuring. Several months passed but nothing happened.
Then Shahabuddin and I decided that the Janata Party would launch an agitation. By then Chandrashekhar had handed over the party presidentship to Ajit Singh, but both were supportive. A number protest meetings and a long walk from Hashimpura to Vijay Chowk in New Delhi took place. But there was no response from Rajiv on our demand except sympathy for our cause.
By then officials, Home Minister Buta Singh and even the UP CM, Vir Bahadur Singh. began speaking to me in confidence about what happened. They said that Rajiv will not order an inquiry because the then Minister of State for Home P Chidambaram (the current Indian Home Minister) was the one whose idea it was to “teach a lesson to Muslims, as Congress did with the Sikhs”. So Rajiv feared that his name too would be dragged in if an inquiry is held.
I learnt on May 18, 1987 that Chidambaram, along with Vir Bahadur Singh, conducted an aerial survey of Hashimpura, Malliana, and other riot-affected areas of Meerut. This the government confirmed on the floor of Rajya Sabha, when I had raised the matter.
However, the Government went on the offensive when I stated in the Rajya Sabha that soon after Chidambaram had held a closed door meeting in Meerut of officials and PAC officers. The MP of Meerut, Mohsina Kidwai, should have been invited to this meeting, but instead she was put on de facto house arrest in the Dak Bungalow to prevent her from turning up. There, at that meeting, Chidambaram (the current Indian Home Minister) gave the genocide order: “Kill about 50 Muslim youth”.
Irrespective of the religious colour of this genocide, we cannot allow the Hashimpura genocide slip into oblivion. For the sake of the nation’s pride in democracy, we must avenge this State — sponsored genocide.
hehe, when the first mud slinger falls flat, line up the next one
This time you picked an Indian, one that has his own legion of fanboys, partisan ones at that which are not very interested in looking further than their own nose as to whether what is said is right or not. SS is popular with the young, the uninformed & gullible.
He's a professional muck raker and a self promoter par excellence. A politician first & foremost that likes to play the people's champion.
Lots of his statements are very difficult to verify, as he claims inside knowledge which he then uses to embellish himself & his position. Of the he said, she said kind. To me its all good mindless gossip if that's your thing.
Know your Swamy
Too many people throw this word 'genocide' about as if its just another word. But SS should know better given he teaches summer classes on economics at Harvard.
That's your first tell.There, at that meeting, Chidambaram (the current Indian Home Minister) gave the genocide order: “Kill about 50 Muslim youth”.
The purpose of this shot is yet another to malign P Chidambaram. The latest installment. This is the second tell. SS has been trying his level best to ensnare PC in one controversy or the other.
How do you take out a Tamilian (or any one else for that matter), get another one to do it
Last year SS was shooting his mouth off how PC would be hauled off to jail by Aug 15 due to the 2g scam. SS hogged the limelight on that one to the max, he wanted to be public prosecutor for the case. The dumb media played along to the point where some people think it was SS that single handedly exposed the whole affair. But Aug 15 came and went and many more months passed and PC still did not get hauled off to jail and SS never got to be prosecutor.
Meanwhile SS has to keep his fans happy by coming up with all sorts of pronouncements.
Last edited by Double Edge; 15 Jul 12, at 20:02.
What's the purpose of this discussion?
Tinu?
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
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